Peter Molyneux in an interview with The Guardian has said he understands ”people are sick of hearing my voice and hearing my promises,” and so now the veteran game designer is ”going to stop doing press”.
He blames his passion for ideas, and that ”people think that these are hard and fast promises,” but then technical issues arise and sometimes ideas just don’t fit. It’s time he stepped away from the mic.
The dream that once was Peter Molyneux’s Godus is over, but is anyone really that surprised? Even the man himself has already admitted months back that Kickstarter encourages ‘over-promising’ features and content, and that’s bad for a man already known as a professional ‘over-promiser’.
22Cans continues development of Godus but it’s now got a much smaller team working on it, and mobile is a big focus to keep the project financially afloat. Meanwhile Molyneux and many other devs have moved on to another project, and one we hope they keep quiet about until it’s ready.
”I say these ideas so passionately, people think that these are hard and fast promises,” Molyneux tells The Guardian. ”I truly believe them when I say them, but as you know, sometimes they don’t come to pass. They don’t come to pass because they’re too technically difficult, they don’t come to pass because maybe they don’t fit and people see this as being a promise.”
”I love working on games, it is my life. I am so honoured to be a part of the games industry, but I understand that people are sick of hearing my voice and hearing my promises,” he continued.
”So I’m going to stop doing press and I’m going to stop talking about games completely. And actually I’m only giving you this interview now in answer to this terrible and awful, emotional time over the last three days. I think honestly the only answer to this is for me to completely stop talking to the press.”
Backers of Godus are overwhelmingly in dismay and angry at these turn of events, particularly with how poorly the once cheered God of Gods - Bryan Henderson - has been equally abandoned by the UK studio. He ‘won’ Curiosity, perhaps the only ever successful project to come out of 22Cans.
”We had someone here who was looking after Bryan, he left and nobody took the reins of keeping Bryan informed and in the loop,” says Molyneux. “That was terrible, it was atrocious and I can understand him feeling offended about that. We should have… I should have made sure that he was still in the loop.”
His reign as God of Gods can’t start without multiplayer, which may not even make it into Godus after all. In fact the new lead on the project has had to be rather candid with the community, and revealed the original wonderland of ideas for Godus is never likely to happen.
For anyone who has followed Peter Molyneux, particularity through his Lionhead Studio days, it’s no surprise promises have gone unfulfilled. He even has a reputation of talking up his project at the time, only to turn on them later. Each Fable has been ‘the one’ before he admits they disappointed.
22Cans newbie Konrad Knaszynski is now leading Godus, and Molyneux promises that it will be delivered in nine months’ time. Can Molyneux keep his pledge of no more press? History says no.
